You’ve just finished your interview for CNBC. You looked great on TV and you delivered your message well. You still, however, have to give a few more interviews to some disheveled and rumpled print reporters, so now it’s time to sit back and relax, right?
Wrong!
Even though the TV camera is no longer present, these print reporters are judging every aspect of your body language and voice (whether they are conscious of doing so or not).
What do you do if you have an incredibly large amount of data that you must present to an audience, but you are limited to a strict time amount of, say 10-30 minutes?
By far, the absolute worst mistake you could make is to do the following: cram every fact you can find into a bullet point and then on a PowerPoint and then race through that PowerPoint in front of your audience. You can guarantee that no one will remember anything you say if you try this technique (though you will be in good company, since this is what most bad-to-average presenters do).
Far too many speakers attempt to look and sound smart by drowning their audience members in a sea of facts. “More is more†is their philosophy. The problem is that no matter how quickly you speak during a 20-30 minute speech, there is no way you can get your audience to know as much as you do on your area of expertise.
The other reality is that your audience can already get all of the facts on your subject from the internet. People are not suffering from a lack of information or facts. There are more than 100,000 books published every year and, seemingly, another 100,000 blogs run by self-appointed pundits published every hour.
Everything was going well during my presentation. My audience was laughing, my stories were connecting, and you could smell knowledge and skills being transferred in the air.
I was in my groove. I was the master communicator in action!
But then I looked down at my chest. My ink pen had exploded and their was a giant blue ink spot coming out of my shirt pocket, only partially obscured by my suit jacket.
Every year, around Valentine’s Day, many people begin to prepare for the biggest presentation of their life. This speech often leads to the biggest joys of their life (as well as their biggest sorrows).
What is the speech?
A wedding proposal.
“Will you marry me?” is not just a simple question. Before you make this presentation pitch of a lifetime, please take into consideration the following seven issues:
Abe Lincoln is still getting good press for his Gettysburg Address; can the same be said of your most recent board meeting presentation?
You might not be keeping the United States together as one Civil Union, as Lincoln did, but that doesn’t mean you can’t borrow some of Lincoln’s skills, as demonstrated in Gettysburg, for your own next business or civic presentation.
Here are seven key tips you can take away from Lincoln’s most well-known address:
So you have just been interviewed by Fortune or Time or your local glossy business publication. The interview went well, but now the publication wants to send a photographer out to you to take some shots of you to accompany the article.
What rules should apply when preparing for a business photo shoot?
I used to be against business people using props during a presentation. Too gimmicky, I thought. Plus, what happens if your props break or don’t function properly? You should not be dependent on props to make a point; you should be able to make the point just with your words from your own mouth.
I still believe that most of these things are true. However, if you are speaking for longer than 10 minutes and you do have a prop that makes your point more understandable and more memorable, then why not use it? This is my new attitude.